Characters: Countess Olivia, Kadaj, Gena, Roxanne, Frankie, Queen Isabella, Fallon, Narsis, Aisha, Rachelle
Location: The Queen's castle
Time: Day 4 - 5:15 PM
Since the end of the Tournament of Champions, a lot of things had changed. Countess Olivia and her faithful servant, Kadaj, hopped in their carriage to be returned to the House of Sienna in Haledon. Olivia had all but forgotten the heroic Gallahorn Clan they had met a couple of hours earlier, but Kadaj hadn’t. He remembered their faces, their words—especially those spoken by that fool, Sir Mundo—and he scowled to himself, remembering their attempts to take Olivia from him.
Never, he told himself. Never will they take my Olivia away. She is mine.
Mine. Mine forever.
Both Roxanne and Frankie pulled through, thanks to Sister Aisha’s undying care, and Gena welcomed them back into her life with open arms. They were all invited to Queen Isabella’s castle for a huge banquet and they accepted, dining on cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, cream of parsley soup, biscuits swabbed in butter, red wine, and the occasional Man for dessert. Frankie was the only male at the table, but he had a special seat on Gena’s plate, gobbling down whatever he could reach before her fork would take it away. It was a fun game for both of them and had everyone at the table laughing, even Isabella. She smiled the whole way through dinner and for some time afterward, thinking how happy she was that she had met Lady Gena. Finally, a Forsaken she could trust.
She wasn’t the only one who was happy. So was Roxanne. This was the first time she had found a family who accepted her for who she was. So what if she was bad? So what if she was a Forsaken? They liked her. There was no one to tell her, “Don’t put your spiked iron boots on the table,” or “Don’t talk with chewed Men in your mouth,” or “Don’t cut your meat with a bloody axe.” Here, they loved her. And she laughed, danced afterwards, and forgot the real world because it wasn’t worth remembering.
And the dancing was amazing. Isabella invited them to the ballroom and it was bigger than the high school gym, adorned by gold pillars, painted glass windows, and a ceiling that touched the sky. There, they all danced to the singing and playing of the Queen’s personal Bards, who were putting on a show for all the local townspeople. Anybody who wasn’t dancing was at least clapping and the whole room was filled with color and music and life. Both Gena and Roxanne danced through the night. Frankie got tired early on—and afraid of getting stepped on by the thousands of stomping feet—so Gena let him sit on her shoulder and he laughed and so did she.
The real world was beginning to slip away. Gena and Roxanne still remembered, but the more they pretended not to, the more they began to forget. Everything was so much happier here. So much more colorful. They wanted to forget about everything.
So did Narsis. He was the only one in the ballroom not having fun. Isabella had chained him to one of the pillars and the peasant girls—the ones in long skirts of spring colors with their hair up in buns—would come over and point and giggle at him as if he was some cheap sideshow attraction. He would turn red, even redder than he already was, and try to run away. But since he was chained to a pillar, he would only run in circles and the girls were all around him, laughing, making him feel smaller than a Man.
Isabella didn’t do much dancing. She had the energy, of course, but as a Queen, she had a lot of important duties to attend to—such as a bubble bath in her royal tub. That’s where she spent most of the evening, soaking in warm bubbles and bare skin. While she was there, Fallon wandered around the ballroom, making sure everybody was having a good time, shaking hands with all the royals, exchanging stories and comments with everyone she knew.
Both Aisha and Rachelle were invited to the banquet and dance, but neither had much fun because the other was there. They sat on opposite ends of the dinner table and danced on opposite sides of the ballroom because they had nothing to say to each other. That did not, however, prevent one conversation from occurring between the two. It happened early in the evening—before the banquet, in fact, when Rachelle was on her way to the washroom and Aisha was just returning from there. They bumped into each other in the hallway and it was the kind of bump that couldn’t go unsaid.
“You could at least say excuse me,” Aisha said. “Or is being polite against the code of Dai Celesta as well?”
Rachelle shook her head. “Aisha, listen to me…”
“I’m done listening to you. I can’t believe you, Rachelle. You talk about morale, but you don’t practice what you preach.” She looked up at her friend with unforgiving eyes. “I’ve seen a new side of you today, Rachelle. I never knew you were filled with so much hatred and greed. How did you ever become a Priest? You would have let this Men die. You would have watched them suffer, the most terrible of deaths at the feet of creatures a hundred times their size, and clapped when they were gone. You are no servant of Dai Celesta.”
“You’re young, Aisha. You have a lot to learn in the ways of Dai Celesta…”
But this time, Aisha shook her head. “I used to think you could teach me so much. Now I know the kind of person you are. The kind who would try to take the glory away from me…”
“Aisha, I wasn’t trying to take anything from you.”
“You told the Queen that you had saved those people!”
“No, I didn’t! She… Look, Aisha, I would never steal the light from you. The Queen, Isabella, she…” But Rachelle couldn’t tell her the truth. She couldn’t say Isabella wanted Aisha dead. Why had she even believed Isabella at the time? She should have known that Isabella wouldn’t really murder a servant of Dai Celesta. The Apostles would have been on her like dogs.
“You know,” Aisha said, breaking her thoughts, “it doesn’t even matter. We’re through, Rachelle. I never want to see you again.”
“But our journey…”
“It’s over. Go home, Rachelle. Go back to the Temple of Life.”
“It’s getting late, Aisha. I’m spending the night here. And we have to stop Sorena from—”
“It’s not our problem anymore. We’ll go back and tell the Apostles what we know. We’ll let them handle it from here.”
“No, Aisha… We can’t let the Apostles know that we were helping the race of Men.”
“Helping?” she echoed. “Rachelle, you’ve been no help from the beginning. You broke my heart. You broke every faith I once had in you.” Her eyes began to swell with tears. “You really let me down.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Aisha.”
“Yes… Yes, it does. You just don’t care.”
“I care more than you think.”
“Dai Celesta save you.”
“Aisha…”
She stepped back, wiping her eyes with her forearm. “It’s over, Rachelle. Our friendship, this journey—it ends here. Just go home. We’re through.”
“But there’s still hope! The Men—they’re out there, fighting to reunite the sacred beetle. We can still help. They need us… They need us, Aisha.”
“They needed you,” she said, turning away. “You failed them. And you failed me.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be? You’re just going to walk away?”
With her back to Rachelle, Aisha smiled, but it was the kind of dark smile that is only revealed in the shadows. “…I’ve watched you for so many years. I looked up to you, Rachelle, just like those Men are forced to. Because that’s what it’s like in our world, the one of hierarchy, the one where we are forced to look up to our superiors. We looked up to you. We had faith and hope instilled in you.” She closed her eyes, trying to escape the real world. “And I watched you walk over everyone, flaunting your superiority and so-called right, stepping on anyone you deem unworthy. It’s easy for you, isn’t it, Rachelle? Like crushing a bug. It doesn’t take much. Just a little push and you can snatch that life away, like you own it, like you can control it. And it must be so easy for you to condemn them to that fate under your sole because your sole has no faith. It has no regrets. …It’s really that simple, isn’t it? There’s nothing more to it than that. Just a little push and it’s gone. But that’s not even what makes me sad. It’s the fact that you never even took the time to try to understand. You just don’t care, Rachelle.”
“…Men are bugs, Aisha. Why do you think there is something more there?”
“They speak to me.”
“So what if they have a language?” she shrugged. “Most creatures do. So what if they know ours? It doesn’t make them equals.”
“And it doesn’t give us the right to kill them!” Aisha lashed, spinning around.
“Yes, it does. We are superior to them, Aisha. Why can’t you accept that? Why do you have to stoop to their level? You could be so much more…”
“I can be nothing more than what I already am.”
“And neither can Men. They will never amount to anything more than bugs. Even if they manage to collect the remaining pieces of the sacred beetle, and even if they can somehow defeat Sorena, it won’t change anything. Come the next day, they’ll still be running from our footsteps. And I still won’t look where I step.”
Aisha took another step back, shaking her head. “It’s over, Rachelle. I’m through with you.” Then she turned and ran down the hallway.
“Good!” Rachelle yelled after her. “I think, starting tomorrow, I’ll crush twice as many Men every day—one for me and one for you!” She watched Aisha round the corner and disappear into the dining room and then let her arms fall to her side. “…Aisha, why? You could’ve been somebody. I had faith in you, too. If you would just understand… Why Men…? They’re not even worth it. They’re so useless… You failed me, Aisha. You failed me, too.”
Giantess World
